Crunch vote on REACH in the internal market committee

The European Parliament’s internal market committee will on Monday (5 September) vote on the controversial proposal to regulate chemicals, REACH.

European Voice

8/31/05, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/12/14, 11:48 AM CET

The committee will be the first of the three lead committees to vote on the proposed law, after Swedish liberal Lena Ek decided to delay the vote on her report in the industry committee until 13 September.

Some 800 amendments have been put forward to a report by the committee’s rapporteur on the issue, German Christian Democrat Hartmut Nassauer.

Nassauer says he is keen to strike a compromise over the thorny issue of risk-based assessment of chemicals.

His report calls for a risk-based registration of substances compared with the tonnage-based assessment proposed by the European Commission. Of the 30,000 chemicals covered by REACH, about 17,000 are produced or imported in quantities of less than ten tonnes.

Campaigners for REACH have accused pro-industry MEPs of trying to sabotage the proposal by delaying it until after the UK presidency. Those close to Nassauer have already admitted that it would be to the MEP’s advantage to wait until a new German government is in office following elections on 18 September.

German Christian Democrat Karl-Heinz Florenz, who is chairman of the environment committee, has written to his counterparts at the industry and internal market committees urging them to resist any more calls to delay the votes.

“Any further postponement would not be acceptable for the environment committee since it would be likely to lead to a considerable reduction in Parliament’s influence on the final outcome,” he said.

Florenz’s fears could be well founded, as the UK presidency has already circulated its preliminary thoughts on the proposal for Council discussions and will publish its final document on 6 September.

The presidency is sympathetic to the notion of a more lenient registration system for chemicals imported in low tonnage but would call for more tests to be done on risky chemicals.

The environment committee is scheduled to vote on REACH on 4 October with a vote in plenary earmarked for November.